Candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), at the 2014 Osun State gubernatorial election, Sen. Iyiola Omisore, said his defeat is as a result of the “clearly partisan” acts of the former Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, in the state.
Omisore who made this remarks at his first post-election briefing in Osogbo, yesterday, said that by the time the electoral commissioner was removed, he had already done the damage.
Rufus Akeju, the Osun State REC, was replaced by Segun Agbaje, a few weeks before the election.
At the end of the election, Mr. Omisore’s 292,747 votes was not enough to defeat Rauf Aregbesola, the incumbent governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, who polled 394,684 votes to emerge winner.
“It was not a race we came into unmindful of the odds stacked against us,” said Mr. Omisore, a former Senator.
“For instance, we had a situation where a clearly partisan Resident Electoral Commissioner had opened the entire electoral system to our opponent from registration stage through data storage to personnel loading.
“Though the leadership of INEC eventually took him out of the state weeks to the elections, he already did a lot of harm in the system that would take years to rectify. In spite of this and the fact that all democratic structures in the state are in the hands of our opponent, our supporters still fought gallantly in every poling unit in the state to achieve the feat we posted in this election,” Mr. Omisore added.
The PDP candidate urged his supporters to remain calm as the party is still studying the election results to determine their next line of action.
“In the meantime, our situation office and party are presently analyzing the results of the elections against field reports. We shall be making public our findings and the appropriate steps accordingly,” said Mr. Omisore.
“I however appeal to all our supporters to remain calm, law-abiding and peace-loving. Our abiding guide is that Osun state must not be governed in the old ways anymore and August 9 has given the demography of the change-seeking people.
